SPQT -- Debt #1

April 23 - Early A.M. No chance of sleeping any longer tonight. The hound archon has claimed his favor and there's no time to be lost. The master for whom the demonologist we defeated last year was collecting books has abducted two priests who were on his trail - Manius Phebonius Carbo and Drusilia Hibernia Perpenia. I must go to Busiris and find someone to guide me to a stone temple of a defeated false god in the desert. The demonologist means to sacrifice them in a ritual that will take an entire day, but he must make some sort of preparation and if he doesn't have the means to shorten the distance, it will take him three days to reach the temple. The demonologist has other wizards in his employ, the usual guards, and a burly half-orc whose weapons are imbued with demonic power. I might have anywhere from two days to a week in which to help my brethren.

Uncle's done business in Busiris. I'll have to impose on him to get me there, along with whoever volunteers to come along. Decimus will, I'm sure. (Lists of things to take snipped.)

After breakfast - The efficiency of this staff is truly a joy to behold. When I explained the situation at breakfast and asked for volunteers, I was inundated - not only Decimus, but Alfredus and Robyn - Gaius of course - I rather wish Corvus had volunteered so that I could reasonably have said no to Gaius, but Corvus has no experience fighting demons and no shame to him. The Sunshine Boys also volunteered, seeming touchingly eager to defend the faith. Sigurd, it is true, hesitated; but I think this was more because he doesn't trust Freydis out of his sight than any reluctance to combat evil. He frets a great deal too much about that girl.

Uncle was not available to teleport us today, but he sent Decimus and I with the military courier, and we memorized the landing zone and popped back one at a time for the others. I'll miss this helm when Decimus wants it back! Robyn found us a guide and the rest of us took care of provisioning. I inquired about the two missing priests as I shopped, and who should I run into but Marcia from seminary! She's serving in the church out here. I told her I had been supposed to meet Phebonius Carbo and Hibernia Perpenia, and she expressed shocked sympathy, for their villa had burned to the ground last night. She seemed to think they were slightly gaga on the topic of demonologists - she always was a little silly. But then, I look a little silly myself at the moment - the hats non-natives are expected to wear here are absurd!

Seeing that there is no time to be lost, we have taken the guide's advice and hired a barge to take us upriver to a series of washes and ravines that should allow us to approach the temple - from the description, he says it is probably the Temple of Anubis - without being seen. Alfredus and the Sunshine Boys are practicing their combat maneuvers in burnooses. We have made sure that they all have magical weapons, in case we fight demons who cannot be defeated by ordinary steel. Bjorn is wielding my magical mace, with which he seems quite pleased, despite its small size. Gaius is gazing in disapprobation at the camels. Decimus is hovering impatiently - I think he wants to discuss which spells we should have in hand.

April 25 - We traveled by night until we came within about a mile of the temple. It was almost dawn, so we stopped and told the guides to set up a base camp, and had their leader take us to a vantage where we could see it. An ugly great thing, with assorted guards hanging about the front door, doing occasional reconnaissances; but we noticed that they all seemed to be concentrated at the front, and that the building, which seemed to be as much hill as construct, was too large for the reconnaissance sorties to go all the way around. This gave Robyn hope that we might be able to flank them, and he and I had Decimus render us invisible and capable of flight, and went off in search of one.

I fear I was not of much assistance in the search, though I had my detect secret doors spell. Robyn found a secret door in the side of a gully, and after finding no signs of one elsewhere, we returned to examine it more closely. It appeared to have been unused for a long time, with dirt in the cracks etc. (I'm taking Robyn's word for this.) We walked back to camp, the spells having worn off, and fetched the others. We were all tired after a night of travel, but a rest would mean approaching in the middle of the day - and who knew what might happen while we dallied? We instructed the guides to wait for us no more than 24 hours, and gave the leader a note for Uncle in that event.

Gaius found no traps on the door and picked the lock with some difficulty. He said the lock was not especially difficult in itself, but it had not been used in some time and was much dirtied and corroded. The passage beyond was only five feet wide, so we proceeded in single file, with Robyn in the lead. At the far end was another door, which was not locked.

The room beyond was torchlit, but empty, with an open doorway; so we were all very quiet. The door through which we'd come had been designed to be difficult to find from our side, and to ensure our escape we did not like to move on until Robyn had found and demonstrated the use of the mechanism to open it again. As he did so, a voice in the other room said: "What's that?"

We all immediately moved to flank the door and Robyn called his armor. A burly half-orc with a falchion came through, and was immediately inundated with barbarians. He had barely had time to react when I cast "hold person" on him. Alfred was still unlimbering the rope when Robyn coolly slit his throat. I have to make time to speak to him about that. To their credit, everyone else was shocked, but there simply wasn't time for moral reflection once the deed was done, so we used a clean spell to remove the blood and bundled him behind the hidden door before proceeding into the next room.

It was almost empty, save for a chair in front of a door. Gaius ran to listen at it, Alfredus ran to listen at the door opposite that one, and Robyn and I hurried through an open doorway, through which we could see a bound woman amid piles of supplies. I healed her to consciousness, and when she saw my holy symbols she started weeping and praising Orus as I cut her free. I asked her where Manius was, and she said he had been taken.

Alfred reported a windy sound at his door and Gaius reported chanting at his. The obvious conclusion was that the sacrifice was underway beyond the chanting door. Alfredus and Bjorn hurried to look through it as Decimus cast Bull's Strength on all of our barbarians and Robyn, Gaius, and I assisted Drusilia to the secret door. I ordered Gaius to accompany her back to base camp and not to return.

Meanwhile, Alfredus and Bjorn had gone through the door and found a large temple room where three men were conducting a ritual over the battered, still living body of Manius. They charged, to deadly effect -by the time I entered the room (behind everyone else; I had to cast Sanctuary on myself to ensure that, whatever else happened, I would not be distracted from reaching Manius),, the man leading the ritual and one of his assistants had already fallen and Bjorn had taken the full brunt of a lightning bolt from a wand. The third assistant had retreated to one side among the pillars and was shortly felled; after which Bjorn began frantically looking for the exit he presumed must be there. Imps flew down from the ceiling and attacked Bjorn and Alfredus, but they were made short work of. As Alfred and I were removing Manius from the altar - he was in dire condition, from pre-existing wounds and from taking part of the force of the lightning bolt - Decimus declared that a flying invisible person was carrying off a book from the altar, and threw a lightning bolt over our heads. Robyn peppered the area with arrows, and Decimus turned into a bat and flew up through a hole in the roof.

While I healed Manius, the others searched the bodies of the mages, and found to their dismay that one was missing! The leader had somehow escaped after he had fallen, and since he was behind the altar no one had seen what had happened. Decimus says that he was not the invisible flyer, for that person was wearing close-fitting black clothing and the demonologist had worn rich ceremonial robes. He had not been able to track the flyer through the maze of tunnels through the top part of the hill/building, and he found a discarded potion bottle, indicating that the flyer, at least, had means to recover from his wounds.

We hid the bodies we had with the half-orc and caught up quickly with Gaius and Drusilia. I healed her all the way up and also healed Bjorn - who had been grievously wounded by the lightning bolt as well as stung by an imp, though he made little of it in that foolish way barbarians have - and sent them back to base camp while we returned to the temple to make sure it was as secure as possible. We found a sword in the scuffed remains of the unholy sign in the middle of the temple floor, and it radiated good rather than evil. Almost everything the half-orc had on will have to be destroyed, however. We discussed whether we should attack the guards or leave them alone. Had we known how to find the demonlogist or the invisible flyer, I would have pressed the point; but we were all tired and we had accomplished the archon's mission. It seemed better to leave while the leaving was good.

Drusilia says that the demonologist intended to summon a pit fiend named in the Book of Al Hazan, intending to get from him the location of yet another, more powerful, book of dire and evil spells. We have foiled him this time, but now Drusilia and Manius have to track him down all over again. I have recommended to them that they obtain help, pointing out how the swift action of Alfredus and Bjorn prevented the sacrifice and rendered my using any of the banishment or dismissal spells I had memorized unnecessary. I believe I hear Alfredus and the Sunshine Boys regaling our guests with tales of past battles now. Their versions don't quite match my memories, but if their versions encourage the good brother and sister to heed me and hire some backup, so much the better.

(April 25 (night) - head out across the desert on camel back

April 26 (shortly after dawn) - arrive back at nameless village on river, board barge for Busiris, with camels and guide

April 27- disembark barge at Busiris

Call it April 27 through May 5- Identify/Analyze Dweomer on the various magic items, and to research a safe means of disposing of the demon-bound items, presumably with the help of the two clerics we rescued.)